Most Fragrant Sweet Peas

Native to the Mediterranean region, Lathyrus odoratus (Sweet Pea) is a bushy or climbing annual noted for the delicious scent of its lovely flowers. Blooming in a wide array of enchanting colors, sweet peas deserve a spot in sunny borders, containers, arches, and trellises where they will happily twine and release their heavenly scent.

• From a fragrance standpoint, not all sweet peas are equal. Some exude a faint scent, others are well-scented, and some are intensely fragrant. According to researchers, the fragrance of sweet peas is determined by six major components and 12 minor ones. This is the combination of these major ingredients with the minor ones, which grants sweet peas their delightful perfume.
• The fragrance of sweet peas is best appreciated on a dry, sunny day – not on a cold and damp day!
• Scent tends to be associated with some sweet pea types more than others. Grandiflora sweet peas tend to be strongly scented while dwarfs tend to be poorly scented. This is, however, a very general rule and there are many varieties that do not fit.

Do not forget: to keep your sweet peas flowering as long as possible, you must keep picking them, because they quickly go to seed as the weather warms up. Pick all the blooms every 8-10 days and remove any seed pods to avoid your sweet pea to channel more energy into seeds than making new flowers.